


We Can Light a Match

by peacefulboo



Series: Round and Round the Flames [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 04:22:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1331752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefulboo/pseuds/peacefulboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If she's going to get out now's the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Can Light a Match

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andymcnope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andymcnope/gifts).



> For Fey. Because she was born.

The day Felicity realizes she's in love with both of them is the day she decides it's time to leave. Slade has been defeated, Malcolm Merlyn is dead again (like actually, we kept vigil over the body for days kind of dead), and the League seemed to be keeping as far away as could be hoped for. 

If she's going to get out now's the time. 

So she makes her plans and she shifts some money around. She resurrects a company that she started when she was 20 and uses her contacts at MIT to get clients and starts dropping hints that she may be ready to get out of the super hero and the executive assistant businesses. 

She tells Diggle first. He doesn't try and talk her out of it, but he does tell her that she'll be missed and that she's essential to how the team runs. But they both know that it's only true for certain values of essential. Despite what he's told her in the past, there is no such thing as irreplaceable. Not when it really comes down to it. 

But what she does know, what she's confident in now, is that she has been useful. She's been bad ass in her own way and she's been loved. Just maybe not in the way she needs now. 

She tells Sara next. She's a little surprised when Sara takes a deep breath, hugs her tight and then disappears for a couple of days. Felicity had been hoping that Sara would be around for support when she finally gets around to telling Oliver but she's running out of time and needs to put in her notice. 

She's perplexed when Oliver's first comment is, “So that's why she disappeared.” He mutters it to himself more than to her. She's surprised when he takes her hand and leads her to the sitting area in her office and chooses to sit right next to her, not letting go of her hand. 

“You're one of my best friends, you know that right?” He says. His eye contact with her intense and not a little intimidating. The thing is, she knows, but she doesn't. Not lately. Their lives are busy and he's got an amazing girlfriend and his sister and like many adult friendships, theirs has been set aside a bit. 

“We're friends, yes.”

She can tell he's a little frustrated by her reply but she just shrugs and keeps eye contact with him. 

“You're an amazing woman, Felicity Smoak. You're brilliant and beautiful. And you are strong and fierce.”

“I am pretty badass.” She agrees, only half joking.

He smiles sadly in reply and kisses her knuckles. Which should be weird. It is weird. But it's also so very Oliver and it more or less confirms that she's making the right decision. 

“Tell me more about this company.” His interest sounds genuine so she begins to describe it to him, getting excited when she talks about the clients she already has on board. 

In a month, she's removed the last few belongings from her desk in front of Oliver's office, and locked herself out of the lair. It's more of a symbolic gesture than anything, it'd be virtually impossible to lock herself out but it's an important step. 

***

Her company flourishes very quickly. Within two years she has 15 employees and is considering bringing a partner on board. And she's happy. 

She has time to date now. And she does. For the first time she gives in when a woman asks her out and they have a fantastic, if short lived relationship. Her name is Amie an she's smart and happy and so fucking gorgeous that Felicity has a hard time taking her eyes off her. The relationship fizzles when Amie decides she needs to move to New York and Felicity is in no position to follow her. She has zero regrets.

She meets a series of sexual partners after Amie but no one really sticks around for long. A few new projects take up more and more of her time and the satisfaction she gets from her job and the friendships she's built with some of her managers are more than enough for her during this time. 

A year after she left Team Arrow, she accepts an invitation to go for drinks with Sara and Oliver. They talk about their vacations and Smoak Tech and a little about Queen Consolidated. Sara seems giddy the whole time but Oliver starts off the night tight lipped and tense. He starts that way but as the evening continues, he gets a little more talkative and freer with his smiles. 

She misses them. God she misses them. But she's happy for them, too. She wasn't the only one who doubted they would last a year, much less more than two. There's a sense of comfort between them that's beautiful to watch. 

She notices the way Sara touches her, easy and affectionate. And she's hyper aware when Oliver squeezes her hand several times during the night, but she refuses to really give much thought to them. They've both always expressed their friendship with touch and she she'd be lying if she said she didn't still get a little tingly when they did it. 

“I miss you, Felicity,” Sara whispers in her ear as they say goodnight. 

She chuckles when Oliver says the same. 

“I miss you, too. And Diggle and even Roy. Tell them hello for me.” 

Oliver nods in agreement, but takes a little bit longer to let go of her hand than is probably appropriate in front of his girlfriend. Except Sara comes in and hugs her again, kisses her on the cheek, and takes Oliver's other hand. They wait silently as the valet attendant brings their cars to them. 

***

She goes on with life after that. She has dinner with Diggle twice but as much as they love each other, they never had a relationship that was sustained by many words and silence at he dinner table is awkward, even when it's relatively companionable. 

She misses them. But maybe not as much as she thought she would. 

***

Felicity gets the call at 5:00am. Sara tells her she needs her in a very calm voice and then hangs up. Felicity doesn't hesitate a second. The entire trip to the townhouse she has all sorts of scenarios running through her head. Someone's died. Someone's killed someone else. There's a slight computer emergency that could probably have been handled over the phone or by a lacky at QC. Or, or, or. 

What she finds instead, is Oliver and Sara cuddled on the couch in the family room, drinking tea. It's quiet and maybe a little solemn in the room, so Felicity sits on the other side of Sara and waits. 

Sara whispers to Oliver, quiet enough that Felicity can't hear. The affection on his face as he nods and drops a kiss on Sara's lips has Felicity aching inside. They're beautiful together. Sara turns in Oliver's arms, and moves a little away from his chest and takes Felicities hands, looks her straight in the face and says, “I love you, Felicity.”

“I love you, too, Sara,” she lets the words slip out, convinced that they mean very different things. 

“No. I mean. I love, love you. I adore you. I miss you so much that it hurts and I just...I love you and want you and I needed to tell you that.” 

Felicity is thrown. This whole dynamic has been weird from the start. But this makes little to no sense. She looks down at the hand that Sara has grasped and nods as if she has any clue what's going on. 

“Like I said. I love you, too.” Her voice cracks a little. And then she looks up and sees Oliver looming behind Sara and is once again so set adrift. “I don't understand. I don't understand. What does his mean?” She's looking to Oliver now, hoping that he'll have answers. 

And he does. 

“I've loved you basically since I've known you, Felicity. And all I've ever wanted for you is to be happy. And I screwed up. We screwed up. Because from the beginning it's been you. And then there was Sara and she's familiar and perfect for me and fuck I love her, too. And I made a choice. And it was the right choice. But now. We both...miss you and need you and it doesn't make sense how much I can love her and ache for you. But I do. She does, too. And I just. God.” He looks down then. 

Felicity Smoak is a brilliant woman. A smart woman. An intelligent, genius of a woman. And she's happy. And she could be happy for the rest of her life without Oliver and without Sara. But she's not sure that she would ever be able to shed the sense of loneliness buried deep in her gut that's been building there since she was five years old. But here with these two people she feels it's clutches loosen just a bit. 

And despite the conversations that will need to take place, and the logistics and the inevitable struggles they will face, she nods and lets them both catch her when she falls.

**Author's Note:**

> This is one version of how these three might work things out, but it's not the only one in my head. I think it's entirely more likely that they'd get physical first and then realize, whooops! But talking is good, too. And that's the direction this one wanted to go tonight.


End file.
